Latino Business Speakers Bureau: Ivan Zapien
story by: David Gomez
Being an emissary of unity is an arduous task. Most people avoid conflict and in doing so they miss out on learning valuable lessons that people with a different perspective have to offer. Fortunately, Ivan Zapien has been an emissary of unity for a great part of his career. It could be said that he has been a diplomat since early in life. Ivan was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, where “Tapatios” root for the Chivas Club Deportivo Guadalajara soccer team. Unlike his dad and most of the people in Guadalajara, Ivan roots for the “Aguilas” Club de Futbol America, the archrivals of Chivas. This loyalty to the opposing team while growing up in a town devoted to Chivas taught Ivan that it’s okay to disagree. Fundamentally, people share commonalities that get lost once people are divided into groups, classes and ideas. Without a doubt, Ivan’s upbringing plays a part in his success in life and throughout his career.
After finishing his law studies at Columbus School of Law, Ivan joined Senator Dennis DeConcini’s team as a staff assistant in Washington D.C. For the rest of his career, Ivan has worked from Washington and has been part of great organizations, such as Walmart and Hogan Lovells. He also worked on Senator Bob Menendez's staff through the transition of SenatorJon Corzine after he was elected New Jersey Governor. In addition to those political campaigns, Ivan was also director of National Outreach for the House Democratic Caucus. In all of those roles, Ivan has been key in threading commonalities in groups thatare, by nature, at odds with each other. He sees value in critical thinking and having different points of view. Because he has persisted and worked through the difficult task of bringing groups together, organizations he’s been a part of have avoided groupthink and successfully deployed their strategies. After a successful campaign to reelect Bob Menendez, he recalls collecting his thoughts and discovering that he was now equipped to overcome self-doubt. He remembers how on victory night he said to himself that any time he found himself thinking he wasn’t ready to take on a task or if a task was too difficult, he could revisit this memory to remind him he could deliver.
Ivan’s story is a reminder in working through the hard problems. Sometimes, the antagonist can be someone who plays for the rival team, or a political adversary. However, Ivan shares that sometimes one can get in the way of oneself because tasks seem too hard, or because of their lack of qualifications and experience. In any case, the reward of open minded individuals is that an organization can develop a well-rounded strategy to the challenges it faces. For an individual, taking on challenging tasks provides experience and confidence to continue growing. He hopes that his story can also inspire Hispanic leaders as well as young generations to test the waters and to venture doing more than before. He wants Latinos represented in areas of government where there is low Latino representation; and he is aware that it will happen one story at a time. The more these stories inspire young Latinos the more it will increase our confidence to set out for greater goals.